carnival, part 1

i dreamed i went to the county fair and everybody i ever knew was there and there were no men with horns or women with beaks but all the same they were all freaks there was johnny harris, who fell through the ice and sheriff phil davis, who wasn't very nice and aunt sally, and uncle fred and a little man with a pointed head there was colonel waters, who ran up the flag and went fishing with an old red carpetbag and major zane, who would never explain and drove his wife, mrs zane, insane and mrs purvis, who worked so hard she heard voices in her back yard and old dan burgess, the handy man and madame lola, with her ivory fan and reverend rudolph, so mighty and high he couldn't look any man in the eye and miss van lester, who taught sewing and art and little miss sloan, with the broken heart hot dogs and popcorn filled the air and everybody wanted their share some were polite and some were rude and the night was misty and many hued and there was danny jensen, with one arm and tom jenkins, from the pig farm standing in front of the gaudiest tent that hell ever spawned, or heaven ever sent it was made of velvet, or like enough and redder than the rubies on the devils cuff the outside was covered with diamonds and pearls and inside there were dancing girls quickly a crowd began to form there was herb macgregor and his cousin norm and wilmer stanton, who had seen the lord and joe brown, who owned a brand new ford and the barker looked like the kind of guy who could sell a bluejay a piece of the sky and sell you one too, if you gave him a chance and had been to new york and paris france in paris the girls do the hoochie-koo the shimmy the shake and the toodle-oo and johnny the apache with his shiny razor is eyeing the foreign legion major the major's monocle gets brighter and brighter coralie's throat gets tighter and tighter bottles crash on the cold stone floor and now the gendarme stands in the door dan carter was a barker bold his mouth was wide and his eyes were cold he could talk a mile a minute and his spiel had plenty in it about the pyramids sacred fires and cleopatra's strange desires and the secret music that filled the skies of katmandu so ancient and wise the sound of mysterious temple bells love rites from the seven hindu hells the menfolk are getting restless you know it's almost time for the show suddenly there arose a shout johnny harris and a roustabout with a red bandana and iron muscles rolled in the dust in a furious tussle sinners and saved both searched the skies to avoid the barkers hypnotic eyes the menfolk were getting restless you know it was almost time for the show "get him, johnny! smash him skin him!" "i always knew johnny had it in him!" "are you kidding? he's getting slaughtered" the fracas was getting hotter and hotter